Scared Silent
by St. Fang of Boredom
Summary: Once upon a time, Subject 404 was the life of the lab, but one angry scientist changed all that in one instance of rage.  A tragic look at how one Flock member may have came to be who he is today.  Rated T for violence and Authoress Paranoia.


Me: So, I started typing this fic out when I was still in high school...

Fang: And she just barely finished it a month before her second year of college.

Me: So this one's pretty old. I originally wrote it in a notebook during World Literature class, so I've been doing some mild editing as I type it up. I decided not to change too much, just added and changed some adjectives here and there... Oh, and I delete the old A/N for this fic and wrote this one. The only things I kept were the Disclaimer and the Claimer.

Fang: A piece of Saint's history...

Me: Whatever. Anyway, this isn't my usual humor stuff, it's more angsty and sad and such. I would tell you what inspired it, but I can't remember.

Fang: Probably learning about child abuse in Early Childhood class.

Me: Probably. Anyway, I'm just gonna let ya read it and I'll see you at the bottom.

Fang: We won't really see you. It's a figure of speech.

Me: ...Why must the idiot treat others the way he should be treated?

Fang: :P

Me: By the way, this story is also 'sequelable' for the contest, if it inspires you...

**Discwaima!: **I do not own Maximum Ride, blast it. When I do, I'll let you know. Hey, Jimmy P? How much are you asking for Fang? Can I pay you in cookies?

**What do I own?:** Crowley. I own him. And I fed him to mad fisher cats. It was enjoyable.

* * *

Subject 404 was boisterous. Rebellious. A discipline problem all around. Already, at the age of 2, almost 3, 404 was turning the entire lab upside-down. He refused to cooperate with the doctors, merely crossing his arms and saying "No." He would throw things at the interns, trying to scare them out. He would do anything and everything to escape and when he did, everything and everyone in his path was fair game. He'd pull things off tables, trip people, pull cords out of walls. There were many doctors who refused to conduct experiments with him.

The final straw was one day when two doctors were taking him down the hall for an experiment. It had all started out pretty well. 404 wasn't even causing problems that day. He was letting one doctor carry him as he looked around, pointing out things in the hall.

"Yights!" said the little boy, pointing up at the ceiling.

"Yes, yes, lights." the doctor said impatiently.

The little boy sensed the doctor's impatience. He pulled on his coat. "White!"

The doctor pulled his hand off. "Stop it."

"Stop it!" 404 repeated. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

The doctor pulled around 404 so he was facing him and shook him slightly. "Shut up, you little lab rat!"

404 whimpered slightly. The doctor was scaring him. Though he'd been yelled at before, no one ever held him like that or shook him. He didn't know how to react.

"Crowley, just put him down. I'll carry him." The other doctor said.

Crowley turned to him. "It's about time someone taught this little monster a lesson!"

404 whimpered again.

Crowley whipped his head back. "I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!"

404 didn't even think. The man had scared him and he reacted in the only way he knew how. In seconds, he had sunk his teeth into Crowley's hand.

"AHH!" Crowley screamed. He violently shook 404 off, throwing him into a wall. He clutched his bleeding hand. 404, still scared and hurt from being thrown, began to cry.

"Look what you did! Look what you did, you little fanged monster! I'm _bleeding_!"

The little boy began to cry louder.

Crowley stalked over, pushing the other doctor, who was trying to get to the boy, away, and knelt in front of him, still towering over the little boy. "Stop your crying! You have _no_ right to cry! STOP IT!"

404 just began to wail.

Crowley raised his arm and back-handed the boy, knocking him to the ground. 404 was screaming at this point.

The other doctor tried to pull Crowley away, but Crowley just pushed him off. Then, he grabbed the little boy, turning him on his back and holding him down.

"STOP YOUR CRYING YOU LITTLE...LITTLE...FANG-MONSTER!" Crowley yelled, grasping for the right insult. "STOP IT!" He leaned right down in the little boy's face. "I've had it with you, you little fanged-creature. This is IT! You STOP IT! I don't want to hear you cry. I don't want to hear you laugh. I don't want to hear you make one stupid little sound EVER AGAIN! Now, STOP YOUR CRYING!"

And with that, the little boy was silent. His dark eyes, still full of tears, just looked up quietly at the angry doctor. They showed no sadness, no happiness, no fear. Nothing.

That's when the other doctor was finally able to get Crowley by the shoulders and yank him off. He scooped the silent little boy into his arms and carried him down the hall, back to his cage.

* * *

No one came to get 404 for any experiment for three days. He didn't leave his cage. He barely left the little corner he had curled up in. But what really started to worry his caregivers was the fact that this little boy, who had been so full of energy and noise, was now silent. Emotionless.

On the third day, the doctor, the same doctor that had brought him back to his cage after his day with Crowley, came into the room where he was kept. He knelt down in front of the cage door and smiled at him. He slowly unlocked the cage and opened it. "Hello, little one. Can you come out?"

The doctor continued to coax the little boy out of the cage, speaking softly. He held out his hand for the boy, but when he squirmed away from the hand, he withdrew it and continued to speak to him. Finally, the little boy slowly and silently crawled out, staring at the strange doctor who was being so kind.

"I'm here to take you to your new home." the doctor said. "My name is Dr. Batchelder, but you can just call me Jeb. Can you say Jeb?"

The boy just stared at him.

Jeb smiled in return. "Alright then. Would you like to walk or would you like me to carry you?"

The boy just began walking towards the door. Jeb followed him. They walked down the hall in silence, Jeb only speaking to guide the boy's directions. Then, when they reached a staircase, the boy stopped. He'd never been up or down the stairs before, and for a boy his size, those stairs were dangerous. He stared at them.

Jeb knelt down next to him. "Now, this is quite a pickle we're in, isn't it? You can't walk down, but you don't want me to carry you. Maybe we can make a deal?"

The little boy turned his dark eyes up to Jeb's face.

Jeb reached into his pocket and pulled out a Hershey's bar. "How about this? This is a candy bar. Have you ever had one?"

The little boy continued to stare.

His silence didn't seem to bother Jeb in the least. "Well, it's something you eat, and it's _really _yummy! How about, if I give you this candy bar, you let me carry you down the stairs. Deal?"

The little boy stared at this new food in Jeb's hand, contemplating. Finally, he reached a small hand out towards the candy bar.

Jeb smiled, opened the wrapper, and handed the candy bar over. As the boy sank his teeth into the chocolate, Jeb lifted him up and started down the stairs. For a moment, Jeb thought he saw fear flash across the little boy's face, but it quickly disappeared and was replaced with his usual emotionless, almost bored-looking stare. He munched his candy bar quietly as they made their way down the stairs.

As soon as they made it to the bottom, Jeb gently placed the little boy on the floor. Jeb thought, with the chocolate smeared all over his face, the little boy looked almost normal. It was his eyes. The bored expression on his face. The one that hadn't been there three days ago.

Of course, the wings didn't help with the 'normal look', either.

Those were two reasons Jeb had fought to have the boy moved downstairs. The boy needed to get away from that place that had silenced him, and Jeb needed a boy with wings. It was a win-win situation, in Jeb's mind.

He led the boy through more halls, past lab rooms and cages. The boy seemed emotionless as he passed each room, but Jeb would notice him, from time to time, silently flicking his dark eyes back and forth, as if he were watching for danger or looking for an exit.

He was the saddest little boy Jeb had ever seen.

Finally, they made it to their destination. Holding Room 115. He stopped the little boy in front of the door, knelt down in front of him, and began to wipe the chocolate off the little boy's face with a tissue from his pocket.

"Now, behind this door is your new home." Jeb said as he wiped. "But also, your new friend. There's a little girl in there who's about your age and has wings, just like you. She's very nice and friendly, so there's nothing to be afraid of. You ready to meet her?"

Nothing from the boy. Just the same bored stare.

"Well," Jeb said. "I'm going to open the door up and you can come in and just look around. Ready?"

Jeb stood up and slowly opened the door. Without a word, the little boy walked in, Jeb following him close behind.

"Jeb!"

A little girl, with hair so dark blonde it was almost brown, came bounding over to the pair, her brown and white wings flapping behind her, as if she were trying to fly. She hugged Jeb's leg, then peered around him, looking at the new boy. She pointed. "Who that?"

"Your new friend." Jeb answered, smiling down at the girl.

The girl turned to the boy and grinned. "New friend, I'm Max! What your name?"

Jeb opened his mouth to answer for his silent new charge, forming an answer in his head to explain why the boy didn't have a name, but the little boy was faster. He opened his mouth and said the first words he'd uttered in three days.

"I'm Fang."

* * *

Fang: ...

Me: If you cry, I'm hitting you with this herring.

Fang: I'm not gonna cry...I'm gonna go...Read a book...-buries head in book-

Me: Yeah...You do that...Anyway, the 'yights' thing came from me, since I couldn't pronounce the letter 'L' as a small child. Ummm...What else was I going to say? I changed Fang's age in this fic a couple times, and I think where I've put it is just about right for how he's acting and speaking. I mean, he's a mutant raised in a lab, so who knows, really?

Oh, as for Crowley, some background info. He was a great scientist with severe anger managment issues who was going through a nasty divorce with his ex-wife because of his temper. Jeb later got him fired from The School and he went on to work at Itex for a short time before his wife ran him over with her Corvette, which broke both of his legs. After getting out of rehab, he moved to Canada and began working on human cloning. The rest is history.

Fang: -looks up from book- You make background stories for all your OCs?

Me: -nods- Duh. Can't just make a random person. They've gotta have a life behind them.

Fang: You couldn't write this into the story?

Me: Too lazy, don't really care abot Crowley anyway. Especially since I fed him to mad fisher cats.

Fang: Alrighty then...

Me: So, with that settled...

R&R?


End file.
